about us
Twins International is a private, apolitical and non-denominational Italian non-profit Organization which, since 2006, has been developing Alice for Children projects in Kenya , in favor of children and women in tough situations in Africa.
Today we support around 3,000 children in total, mostly orphans; a drop in the bucket of people in need, between hundreds of thousands of people who live in Nairobi’s slums, Masai areas and tea plantations, such as the Limuru one.
We have built schools in the slums to give them a primary and basic education, to give them clothes and medical care, to give them a warm meal every day.
But not only: taking care of our orphanage’s and school’s children is of vital importance for us. We have been welcoming them since they were babies, we know their way of dealing with reality and to interact with others. Our educational and training project aim at making them independent people, able to face challenges and difficulties, as well as giving them the future they deserve.
It is not just children that we are helping: they are our kids.
WE WANT
A BETTER FUTURE
FOR OUR KIDS.
WHY IN NAIROBI’S SLUMS IN KENYA
“One day a woman noticed that something was happening on the edge of the cliff over the small lake that separates Korogocho from the dump. A girl was trying to drag his little brother with her to jump into the water together. But what is so monstrous and demoniac in the world, to force two kids into suicide, right when they should open to the beauty of life!”
Slums are illegal urban settlements, inside of which there is neither hygienic services, drinking water, electricity nor services essential to survival. They are agglomerations of shacks, open sewer and dumps. In Nairobi, on a population of 5 million,
60% live in the 110 slums.
Korogocho is one of the slums in the suburbs of Nairobi: second slum in size and population density, where life expectancy drops to 30-40 years old.
70% of the people who live in the slums have no access to sanitary services and drinking water.
Another slum adjacent to Korogocho is Dandora, which takes its name from the homonymous dump, one of the largest in Africa. Here, 850 tonnes of waste are discharged every day:
10,000 workers pick up garbage by hand, among which 55% are children.
Those same children do not receive education, they work to increase their families’ incomes.
For that reason, Alice for Children works actively in Kenya in order to move children away from the world of child labor, aiming at putting them into a continuous and progressive educational path: from an early age until specialization in technical institutes.
LIVE THE TRAGEDY
OF NAIROBI’S SLUMS
WHY IN KENYAN RURAL AREAS
Kenyan rural areas, such as Rombo, shades of Kilimanjaro and Limuru are extremely far from urbanized realities and suffer from further difficulties: homes are far away from water wells, they have no food and no chance to have access to adequate education.
In the land of Masai, families are living from farming and animal husbandry. Therefore, the biggest problem is the serious lack of water, which seriously affects the household income and makes it difficult – if not impossible – to enroll kids in school.
80% of the Masai population have no access to drinking water and hygienic services.
According to tradition, as Masai girls get their first menstrual period, they are considered adults, therefore victims of early marriage and related pregnancies. That practice leads to a very high rate of female illiteracy and withdrawal from school.
Limuru is located in the district of the landowners of tea plantations. Here the situation is particularly tough. Worker’s families get paid during harvest season only, while during the rest of the year they are forced to live without money. Families live in crumbling shacks, in the shadows of enormous colonial mansions, with no hygienic services or water, and with no granted rights. Their children have no chance to go to school, no granted meal or proper medical care.
Therefore, in these two areas we have developed some programs in order to ensure boys and girls the right to education, medical care, clothes, food and a better future.
Discover our school in Rombo and our project in Limuru.
OUR RESPONSE TO DENIED RIGHTS IN THE SLUMS ARE FACTS.
From the absence of adequate nutrition and hygienical services to the lack of clear water and the inability to access to proper medical care, denied rights in the slums are multiple.
Since 2006 our active projects in the slums have the purpose of giving a concrete response to the struggle for the denied rights in the slums.
- Our primary schools allow the kids to have a full access to the right to education and food.
- Our telemedicine and healthcare project, which covers all our children’s medical necessity, guarantees a daily right to health and medical care.
- Our project Alice Italian Food Academy is a training course aimed at the integration into the world of work, which guarantees the right to have a future.
- With the sanitary pads project, Alice for Children works to give the girls free pads, to give them the dignity they deserve and a proper sexual education, to avoid the occurrence of sexually transmitted diseases or early pregnancies.
